Ever since I’d regressed, I’d been racing breathlessly toward my goal without even noticing how breathless I was — but it seemed I really had been out of breath, and in need of comfort.
I studied Cassion quietly for a moment, then held out my hand.
Go on and comfort me a little, Your Highness.
Cassion’s hand, lying obediently atop the blanket, twitched.
It’s about time you worked up some courage, Your Highness.
I swallowed the words that would have pressed him and held my hand out further. Cassion jerked his head away.
But unlike his turned head, his hand drifted toward mine. Cassion’s hand came achingly close, missing mine by a hair.
“Take my hand properly.”
But expecting more from such a bashful prince was asking too much. I simply grabbed his motionless hand myself.
The back of his hand was stiff. When I brushed over its cracked skin — cracked like a tortoise shell — Cassion, unused to anyone’s touch, shivered. I pretended not to notice and spoke.
“Thank you, Your Highness.”
“For what?”
“For worrying about me.”
“Worrying is all I can do.”
“That’s enough.”
You already gave me a great gift in my last life. In this one, all you have to do is accept the gift I give you.
Cassion’s head slowly turned back. His eyes met mine, and he didn’t blink even once.
His golden eyes were clearly different from before. In eyes that had hardened with resolve now lived a will to live.
“You’re certain?”
he asked. There were several kinds of certainty I owed him.
“Certain about what? That I’m rich? Or that marrying me means revenge?”
Cassion let out a sigh.
“The fate of the people who pointed fingers at the curse doll — that’s what I’m asking about.”
Cassion wasn’t so naive a child that he wouldn’t know the story I’d spun was made up — which meant that his asking again had to mean something.
“If it’s not certain, then I’ll make it certain.”
That had to be his way of asking me to.
“You will?”
“Together, if Your Highness wants.”
The corner of Cassion’s mouth lifted. For a moment, the image of a grown Cassion overlaid itself on him.
A dignified figure brimming with vitality, carrying the weight of someone who held everything beneath his feet.
“Your Highness…”
“Let’s do it. Get married.”
He tightened his grip on our joined hands.
“Let’s get married.”
He had finally found his courage.
“Really? You’re going to marry me?”
Her large, clear eyes flooded with joy. Eyes that had been like a deep forest under storm clouds turned the bright color of meadows after rain, carrying the scent of wet grass.
Startled, his heart lurching, Cassion pulled his hand back.
Normally Diana would have snapped at him at once for pulling away and grabbed his hand right back, but she seemed not to have even noticed he’d let go.
She’s completely out of it. Is marrying me really that wonderful?
Embarrassed, Cassion wiped a hand under his nose.
“Say it again, Your Highness.”
Diana grabbed Cassion’s collar and shook it. A touch he would once have swatted away without hesitation, he now simply watched in silence.
Having that pale, delicate hand grip and shake his clothes wasn’t so bad, he thought.
“What? What do you want me to say again?”
“What you just said to me.”
It wasn’t as if marrying meant they’d live together right away, and it wasn’t a marriage born of romantic feeling either — so why did she want to hear it so badly?
Fine. I’ll be generous.
Grateful that she’d flustered Julia and driven her off, Cassion said it with conviction.
“Let’s get married, Diana Viola Irenber.”
Diana’s mouth fell open. As though she couldn’t quite grasp what she’d just heard, she blinked her unfocused eyes and spoke.
“Why? Why do you want to marry me?”
It was an unexpected question in return.
She’d asked him to marry her, and he’d agreed; she’d asked him to say it again, and he had — and now she wanted a reason on top of that?
“Tell me, Your Highness. You must have a reason for wanting to marry me.”
There were plenty of reasons. Every night since meeting Diana, he’d lain awake turning her proposal over in his mind before falling asleep.
Marrying her meant he could have his revenge. That had been the biggest reason Cassion had leaned toward marriage.
This miserable Third Prince’s Palace would turn into somewhere a person could actually live, too.
She’d said she had a lot of money, so his life would certainly become more comfortable.
She said she’d cure my illness too.
Whatever kind of magic it was, ever since he’d started steadily taking the medicine that sky-blue-haired man had brought him, getting around had grown easier.
The pain that used to strike without warning disappeared once he took the medicine, and life had grown far easier. That alone made Cassion feel as if he’d gained everything.
The reasons were more than enough, that way. But the thing that had decisively made up his mind to marry her was something else entirely.
“Your Highness, I said tell me. Is it because I’m rich?”
Cassion’s brow twitched.
“Because I look like I’d be good in a fight?”
That one was definitely not it. Cassion shook his head.
“Because I’m a lady of House Irenber?”
If the lady of House Irenber had been someone else — if a different lady had made him the same proposal — would Cassion have accepted the marriage?
“No. It’s not because you’re the Lady of Irenber.”
“Then, because I’m pretty?”
That last one was Diana teasing him. But the bare skin visible on Cassion flushed a faint red.
“T-that’s not it!”
Cassion stammered, flustered.
“Why so flustered. It was a joke. More importantly, Your Highness, are you running a fever? Are you not feeling well? Never mind, don’t bother answering. You don’t have to tell me.”
Insisting it had only been a joke, Diana tried to lay Cassion back down. Cassion resisted, but he was no match for Diana, who was older, taller, and stronger than him.
In the end, though he felt far better than usual, Cassion ended up lying flat on the bed with the blanket pulled all the way up to his chin.
Diana patted him on the stomach.
The gap between them was only two years, yet Diana treated Cassion like far too much of a child — and she was a child herself.
Maybe it was because her touch was so gentle. He felt sleepy.
“Thank you for agreeing to marry me.”
“The reason I want to marry you is…”
Still feeling he ought to give her a proper answer to her question, he started to speak, but Diana cut him off.
“I know, I know. I’ll take care of everything. Just trust me. I’ll buy you Twilight Manor! I’ll get you your revenge! I’ll put a crown on your head!”
“That’s not what I—”
“This is going to keep me busy, with all there is to do. I was going to give you Twilight Manor as a proposal gift, but it looks like it’ll be a wedding gift instead! Your Highness, I’ll be going now. Rest well!”
“Diana, I’m not done—”
Before he could even finish speaking, Diana was gone in a flurry, like a gust of wind.
Dazed, Cassion stared at the spot where she’d been sitting, then let out a hollow laugh.
The mood that had sunk to rock bottom after seeing Julia had, without his even noticing, lifted.
Cassion buried the answer he hadn’t managed to give and closed his eyes. Little huffs of laughter kept slipping out at the corners of his mouth.
At the very moment Diana had dramatically won Cassion’s acceptance of her proposal,
“Phoenix Bank, bankrupt?”
Julia snatched up whatever was within reach and threw it at Anderson.
The first and second times it was a cushion, but the third thing she threw was a flower vase.
The vase struck Anderson in the stomach and shattered on the floor. Anderson thought himself lucky it hadn’t hit his head.
“Where did you hear this?”
“Does it matter where I heard it? Is it true or not that Phoenix Bank is on the verge of bankruptcy?”
Julia advanced on him as if she meant to tear into him with her teeth. With her face nearly touching his, the thick scent of lilies she wore made Anderson hold his breath.
“It isn’t, Your Majesty. A great many people are withdrawing their deposits, but I’ll see to it that nothing of the sort happens.”
Julia, breathing hard, braced a hand on the table.
When Diana had first brought up Phoenix Bank, Julia had assumed it was an empty rumor. What had made her angry was the fact that, rumor or not, Diana had known something she herself hadn’t.
“Anderson! I told you to report anything at all about Phoenix Bank to me, no matter what.”
In that brief moment, Julia forced her anger back down. Whatever fury she managed to bottle up, she could vent on some proper target later. Anderson was someone she needed, after all — no sense wasting her temper on him for nothing.
“My apologies, Your Majesty.”
At the clean, unembellished apology, Her Majesty the Queen swallowed back whatever else she might have said and sat down on the sofa.
At Anderson’s gesture, the maids filed in one after another. They slipped the shoes from Julia’s feet and began kneading them.
Julia closed her eyes, sinking deep into thought.
That girl from House Irenber.
Why was she meeting with Cassion — and in secret, at that? Was there really someone behind her? More to the point, how was she even getting in and out? Did she have some helper inside the palace?
As Julia saw it, sneaking in and out like that meant there had to be a clear purpose — but House Irenber had nothing to gain from Cassion that she could think of.
“I’ll look into the matter of Phoenix Bank.”
Anderson said.
“No. There’s something else first.”
Anderson bowed his head. Julia gestured to the attendants, and they filed out of the room one after another.
Only once she was alone with Anderson did Julia speak.
“Diana, of House Irenber. Find out everything about that girl. And how she’s been getting in and out of the palace, too.”
A cold smile touched Julia’s lips as she gave the order to dig into Diana’s background.
“Let’s get rid of that door as soon as possible.”
Whether that door turns out to be a person, or an actual door.
The moment I heard Cassion accept my proposal, I headed straight home. There was something I wanted to settle before we married.
“Where have you been off to?”
I opened the study door to the familiar smell of cigarillos. Red hair swayed in the breeze. Cho waved at me.
What was I supposed to do with an aunt who smoked cigarillos in the study of a niece who wasn’t even of age yet. When I glared at her in displeasure, she pointed to the window behind her.
“I kept the window open.”
“You climbed in through the window and forgot to close it after, you mean.”
“Caught, am I?”
Cho grinned, shameless as ever, and I found myself at a loss for words.
This room wasn’t just mine to use — Lebert came and went too. Eventually Cassion would as well.
So she really ought to break the habit of lighting up anywhere, anytime.
Well, that was a conversation for another time. First, the matter at hand.
“How did the Phoenix Bank business turn out?”
